OMD EM5 Color Capture Problem.

I was at a landscaping supply place when I noticed the most vibrant orange-red I had ever seen. It was the water run-off from a large pile of some cedar mulch I believe. The color was very reminiscent if not the same of this shot from Manufactured Landscapes:

However, when I tried to capture it, I found it to be impossible. I shot vivid, enhanced auto etc. I tried bumping up the saturation, contrast - even fiddled with white balance. But I just could not get the correct rendition. All I got was the following:

This looks like the red channel is over exposed - the camera is trying to make everything 18% grey - but the river bank in this scene is darker than that and it's blowing out the red so it loses saturation.
Just turn down the ev compensation a bit in the camera (something like -1eV). Look at the river bank - hard to guess without seeing the real scene but the river bank looks too light to me...sadly ramping up jpeg saturation/contrast makes the blown red channel worse.

Also, shoot raw - you'll get much more information in the highlights and be less likely to blow out pure colours - sooo much more headroom to pull back highlights with something like lightroom/aperture.

I've horribly overdone the edit btw - it's just a quick hack in faststone. Pulled down the highlights, increased the contrast and pulled out some green.
Single pure colours are quite easy to overexpose, you'll get the same with stage lighting - particurly in reds for some reason.

This looks like the red channel is over exposed - the camera is trying to make everything 18% grey - but the river bank in this scene is darker than that and it's blowing out the red so it loses saturation.
Just turn down the ev compensation a bit in the camera (something like -1eV). Look at the river bank - hard to guess without seeing the real scene but the river bank looks too light to me...sadly ramping up jpeg saturation/contrast makes the blown red channel worse.

Also, shoot raw - you'll get much more information in the highlights and be less likely to blow out pure colours - sooo much more headroom to pull back highlights with something like lightroom/aperture.

I've horribly overdone the edit btw - it's just a quick hack in faststone. Pulled down the highlights, increased the contrast and pulled out some green.
Single pure colours are quite easy to overexpose, you'll get the same with stage lighting - particurly in reds for some reason.

Click to expand...

Yes, that is much closer. I almost want to go back there and try your -1 ev suggestion...and I always shoot Raw. It's what I saw on the camera's display screen when shooting that really threw me.

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